Thursday, February 08, 2007

Great Minds Think Alike

Excerpted from a thread on Mud-Dev, via the new archive provide by int:

This has consequences. There used to be a virtual world called NeverWinterNights, unrelated to the BioWare RPG, on AOL. When it was closed down, itsrefugees descended on Meridian 59. They immediately wanted M59 to incorporateevery piece of NWN functionality that they could remember. In general, playersview all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one.

Isn't it strange that with each graphical improvement and feature addition, Istill compare every game to Neverwinter?

The comments from MUD-Dev are by Richard A. Bartle, from a paper he wrote called Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really! It's a good read and has been posted in its entirety at MUD-Dev in the thread I excerpted. He is well known for his collaboration on MUD, and his writings at Terra Nova.

Also, no one told me about M59 when NWN closed. I am feeling quite left out right now, but I would imagine choosing Ultima Online as my next existential world has led me here, so I can't really complain too much.

Then again, those who went to M59 took the road less traveled, and perhaps that has made all the difference?